To be Remembered
by lionesseyes13
Summary: When Oliver asks Professor McGonagall to return Harry's Firebolt, the conversation does not go as smoothly as Oliver hoped and forces him to think about what really is worth dying for...Set during Prisoner of Azakaban.


To be Remembered

Swallowing the lump that had suddenly and most inconveniently lodged without his permission in his throat, Oliver Wood knocked on the oak door of Professor McGonagall's study. Somehow, he managed to put more conviction than he felt into the rap.

Of course, he told himself, there was no reason for him to be nervous. He hadn't been summoned here for a lecture or any other form of discipline. He was here to make a perfectly valid request, and if Professor McGonagall was half as intelligent as she liked to believe, she would grant it.

There was no reason for her not to let Harry Potter have his Firebolt back, he insisted to himself, much as he had assured Potter earlier in the common room. She wanted Gryffindor to win the Quidditch Cup as much as anyone on the team did.

Still, for some reason, he couldn't feel nearly as confident that she would agree to return Potter's new broomstick as he had when he was talking in the common room with Harry. On a whole, he supposed that was because it was hard to feel certain of anything when you were preparing to face the second most forbidding teacher in Hogwarts—and, most likely, in all of Europe. In fact, perhaps it would be better for Oliver to just walk away and wait for her to decide for herself to give Potter back the Firebolt. After all, Oliver didn't want to receive detention for bothering her when she was grading essays on Switching Spells…

"Come in," Professor McGonagall called crisply, putting an abrupt end to his thoughts of strategic retreat.

Taking a deep breath to gather up what remained of his courage, Oliver opened the door to the office and stepped inside.

"Good evening, Professor," he said, forcing himself to sound as hearty as he did when he greeted his friends in the corridors, and noting inwardly that only the bravest Gryffindors would confront Professor McGonagall in her own study, as he was about to do.

"Good evening, Wood." Professor McGonagall eyed him beadily over a stack of papers she was marking. "Now, why don't you tell me why it will not actually be a good evening for me?"

"Er." Feeling, as he often did when the Transfiguration teacher posed a question to him, that his brain had been transformed into a rock so that he could be the stereotypical idiotic Quidditch player, Oliver frowned. "I don't know what you are asking me to do, ma'am. Would you like me to read you the headlines in the _Evening Prophet_?"

"No, Wood, I can do that for myself, thank you." Professor McGonagall's lips quirked into what, on a less austere woman, might have been a slight smile. "I am asking you to tell me what you want from me."

"How do you know I want anything from you, Professor?" Oliver asked, caught off-guard. He had been hoping to soften her up with a few compliments on her marvelous instructing abilities before he brought the conversation around to what he wished her to do for him—or, more precisely for him, for Potter, for the rest of the team, and for the entirety of Gryffindor House.

"I've been teaching since before you were a glint in your parents' eyes, Wood," said Professor McGonagall, her tone as dry as autumn leaves. "To be blunt, there are no charming tricks you can try to use on me that I haven't encountered before, so it would be best for you to stop beating around the bush. My time is precious, and I am not well-disposed to those who waste it for me."

"Right." Not so wrong-footed that he couldn't feel a grudging admiration for her straightforwardness, Oliver nodded and went on, flooding himself with the mania that always pervaded his pre-match speeches, "Professor, I'm not asking you to do something to benefit me. I'm asking you to do something to help all of Gryffindor House—"

"Save your speeches for your team, Wood," interrupted Professor McGonagall, her lips thinning. "It is the young who need to have their passions stirred by speeches, not the old. The old care for results, not passions or speeches, and I'm no longer young."

"I care about results to, Professor," Oliver said, his eyes gleaming with the glow that only thoughts of victory on the Quidditch pitch ignited in him, as he exploited the excellent opening that she had unwittingly provided for him. "It matters to me if Gryffindor wins the next match against Ravenclaw. I want Gryffindor to get the Quidditch Cup so much that it is like a constant ache in my stomach and a perpetual thorn in my side. There are times when I can't breathe, sleep, or eat because I want to win that Cup so much that I can't do anything else."

"I would be delighted to see Gryffindor win the Cup." Professor McGonagall shot him a piercing glance over her spectacles. "You know that. That is why I arranged for Madam Hooch to supervise team practices, instead of having Potter stop participating in them. That is why, back in Potter's first year, I persuaded the headmaster to allow him to have his own broomstick—"

"I know what you've done for the Gryffindor team in the past," interjected Oliver, so focused on arguing for the return of Potter's Firebolt that he forgot that interrupting the Head of Gryffindor House was about as suicidal as poking a sleeping dragon in the eye. "I appreciate everything you've done for the team in the past, Professor, but now I need you to do something else for us. I need you to give Potter his new broom back."

"I will return Potter's broomstick," Professor McGonagall answered in a resolute voice. Before Oliver, his mouth agape with astonishment that he had made her see reason so rapidly, could stammer out an expression of gratitude, she dashed his hopes by continuing briskly, "Once Professor Flitwick, Madam Hooch, and I have examined it to our satisfaction."

"How long will you be keeping it, then?" Oliver scowled. "Until Potter is buying toy broomsticks for his grandchildren?"

"As long as necessary, Wood." Professor McGonagall's jaw tightened. "I daresay, however, that we'll be keeping it until it has been stripped down thoroughly."

"Ma'am, think about what you're saying!" exclaimed Oliver, a vein pulsing desperately in his neck. "Do you know what stripping down a broom does to it?"

"As the Transfiguration professor at this school, Wood, I think that I have a better idea of what exactly stripping down a broom does than you do," Professor McGonagall snapped.

"Then I don't know how you can consider doing it to Potter's new Firebolt, Professor," Oliver shouted, pounding his fist against his forehead. Frustration throbbed through his bloodstream, replacing the oxygen that should have flowed through it. "When your little committee is done messing around with every twig in the broomstick, it will be slower than an ancient Shooting Star. How the heck will he be able to out-fly a Seeker like Chang then? How can you say you care about Gryffindor winning the Cup when you are going to destroy the best broom anyone on our team could hope to get?"

"Perhaps I care more about the boy riding the broomstick than about the broom itself," replied Professor McGonagall in a cold tone that made Wood shiver despite the warmth the fire cackling in the hearth behind her emitted. "Maybe you should try to do the same."

"Potter wants his broom back, Professor," Oliver insisted, thinking that slapping his fist against his forehead hadn't relieved any of the anger boiling inside him, so perhaps he should bang his head against McGonagall's mahogany desk. "I'm trying to get him what he wants."

"Children don't always want what's best for them." Professor McGonagall's nostrils flared.

"You can't just take Potter's Christmas present away from him because you think it might be dangerous for him." Oliver gritted his teeth so loudly that he was sure the noise could be heard in Canada.

"For your information, I have the authority to confiscate anything a student possesses which I suspect might be cursed with Dark Magic," Professor McGonagall corrected him sharply enough to vivisect him. "If you believe that I'm abusing my power, kindly submit formal complaints to Professor Dumbledore or the Ministry of Magic. Just be warned, though, that the headmaster and the Minister, for their own reasons, care as much about Potter's welfare as I do."

"Don't tell me that you think the Boy Who Lived is a closet Dark wizard." Snorting, Oliver barely managed to resist the temptation of rolling his eyes. "That sounds like the sort of theory Marcus Flint would invent after drinking too much Firewhiskey over the holidays. Besides, even if Potter was crazy enough to enjoy cursing his own broom, when would he have gotten the chance to place even a single spell on the Firebolt? In case you've forgotten, Professor, you took it from him before he could do anything remotely suspicious with it."

"I don't think Harry Potter cursed the Firebolt," responded Professor McGonagall, the lines on her face even more dour than usual. "I think that Sirius Black did."

"When would Black have been able to find the time to buy a Firebolt with the whole Ministry and an army of dementors on his tail, Professor?" Oliver scoffed, waving a hand dismissively. "How would he have passed all the security and identity checks everyone who purchases a Firebolt has to undergo? Anyway, where would he have even found the gold to buy the most expensive broom in the world when Gringotts usually freezes the accounts of all wizards convicted of felonies such as mass murder?"

"If Black can break out of a high-security cell in Azkaban, sneaking into Quality Quidditch Supplies would probably be a walk in the park for him, don't you think?" Professor McGonagall arched an eyebrow at him.

"I can't imagine how he would do such a thing, ma'am." Defiantly, Oliver lifted his chin.

"There are many things that Sirius Black has done that I could never have imagined him doing until he did them, Wood." As if to keep them from trembling with rage, Professor McGonagall pressed her lips together. "His escape from Azkaban is really among the least of the shocking and impossible things he has done, I assure you. That's why, when I'm dealing with Black, I have to assume that there is nothing he wouldn't or couldn't do anymore. After all, he never obeyed any rules, and why should that change at this late date?"

"And what could he have done with the broomstick if he even managed to buy it and send it to Potter, anyway?" demanded Oliver impatiently.

"Bewitch it to throw off Potter, for starters, Wood," Professor McGonagall rapped out, her nostrils flaring.

"I don't care if Potter falls off his broom as long as he catches the Snitch first," blustered Oliver, thinking only of the number of times Harry had survived toppling off a non-cursed broomstick, and not considering the effect this statement might have on his audience.

"In other words, you care more about winning a Quidditch match than you do about Potter's life," Professor McGonagall shouted, rising to her full and considerable height. "Well, let me assure you of something, Oliver Wood. I'm not going to stand aside and watch Harry Potter die in a Quidditch game. I've fought You-Know-Who and his Death Eaters myself. I know better than anyone that there are few things in life worth dying for, and Quidditch, however important you may think it is, is not among them."

Her chest heaving, she interrupted her own rant long enough to take a gulp of air. Taking advantage of what might be his last chance to speak before she hexed him into oblivion, Oliver protested, "Come off it, Professor. I didn't mean that Potter should actually die getting the Snitch. I was being figurative. There's no need for you to take everything so blasted literally and seriously."

"Taking things too seriously, am I?" Professor McGonagall's eyes burned more heatedly than the flames in the fireplace behind her. Yanking out a drawer of her desk, she demanded, "Do you know what is in this drawer, Wood?"

"Er, no, ma'am." Nonplussed, Oliver shook his head.

"These are pictures of all my students whose lives, tragically, were over before they had really begun." Roses, as bright as any laid over a gravestone, blossomed without warning in Professor McGonagall's cheeks, as she rummaged through the drawer, rifling through glossy photographs of giggling girls and chortling boys.

Barely glimpsing the young, merry faces as McGonagall's fingers shuffled through the gleaming photos, Oliver thought that the teenagers in the pictures could have been his friends, his teammates, or his classmates. The laughing boys and girls in the photos all seemed so filled with life, and yet, unlike Wood's fellow students, they were dead.

His throat tightening, Oliver wondered if—like him—the adolescents in the photographs were so happy because they believed that death was a distant ghost who haunted everyone but themselves. Maybe, like him, those boys and girls in the pictures would never have imagined themselves succumbing to death when they were so healthy and strong that even death would have to be ashamed to steal their life force. Then again, perhaps they had realized that they were destined to die young. Possibly they were laughing so long and so loud because they sensed just how short their existences would be, and, therefore, were determined to cherish every moment of life that fate allowed them.

"Do you see this girl?" hissed Professor McGonagall, thrusting a photograph under Oliver's nose.

Staring down at the shining picture, he found himself gazing into eyes as vibrant a green as any spring forest. Faint lines around the girl's almond-shaped eyes suggested that giggling and smiling must have been almost as commonplace to her as breathing. In the picture, the girl, who appeared about thirteen, was giggling, and her head was thrown back, so that her rich red hair cascaded past her shoulders.

"I see her," Oliver answered, his lungs clogging. The girl in the photo had the slender build that always made him crush on girls in real life. If she were alive and still around his age, he would have flirted with her. However- it hit him like a curse in the chest- she was dead. In the picture, she had looked like precisely the sort of slight girl who would have been swept away by any gust of wind if her shoes hadn't grounded her, and now she had been blasted out of this world. All that was left of her now was photographs and memories that could not be swept away as easily as she could. "She—is—was beautiful."

"Yes, she was." Professor McGongall sounded as if she had caught the cold Oliver had just found himself afflicted with. "She was also compassionate, funny, brave, and selfless. She always looked for the best in people, and she often managed to bring it out, too. She never permitted bullying to go on in front of her. She never failed to defend the innocent and the weak. Almost everybody who knew her was fond of her. Her death was devastating to many people, but everyone who cared about her could console themselves with the fact that she died as she lived. As her last act, she chose to die to save a loved one. Her name was Lily Evans nee Potter—" Here, Oliver's mouth fell open, as comprehension started to ripple through his brain—"and she died shielding her son from the most evil wizard in history. I honor her sacrifice, and I certainly will not throw it away as though it had less value than a vomit-flavored Bertie Botts Bean. I do everything in my power to protect all of my students, but I would die to save Harry Potter if I had to. Rest assured, Wood, that if Harry Potter's life can be saved by doing something as simple as stripping down a Firebolt that might have been sent to him by Sirius Black, it will be."

"I understand, Professor," Oliver said, swallowing hard, because he finally did understand. "You know, if I had to, I'd die for Harry Potter, too, and so would the rest of the team. If someone messes with one member of the team, that person is messing with the entire team."

"I don't doubt that your generation can be as brave as Lily's, although I do hope, perhaps in vain, that it won't have to be." Professor McGonagall's lip trembled again, and Oliver couldn't help but contemplate if her mouth had been shaking with grief rather than wrath earlier in the evening. "Of course, if you do make the ultimate sacrifice, I will remember you, as I do Lily Evans. Still, I will not conceal from you that I would prefer to remember you for winning the Quidditch Cup."

"I would, too." Oliver smiled with all the sauciness he could muster, desperately trying to pretend that this had been a typical conversation. After all, meaningless conversations were so much less difficult to handle than ones that broke his heart and exploded his mind.

It was easier to think of Professor McGonagall as a stern, uncaring witch who existed mainly to cram boring facts into his head and punish him for disregarding even the most minor of the school's rules than to imagine her as someone who actually was concerned about his welfare—somebody who really cared whether he lived or died. It was also easier to picture himself as a tough Quidditch captain so obsessed with his sport that he didn't have time to worry about the death of himself or his Seeker.

Sometimes the real world was too impossible to handle, as he was concerned, and maybe that was why even the uncompromising Transfiguration teacher took refuge in photos when she had to deal with the fact that even she couldn't turn the dead back into the truly living.

"Well, then, we are finally agreed on something, Wood." Professor McGongall granted him a grim smile. "Now, I suggest that you run along before that changes. Please inform Potter that he may have his broom back once I am positive that it won't be the death of him."


End file.
